Getting going and seeing the light.

I just submitted this project as a talk for the Ignite Phoenix event on May 4th. It is kind of like a more structured TED talk for the community. I gave one of these before for my sustainability education job, which you can see here. It was sweet, but man did it take a bunch of prep work.

I think that this project is very interesting, but if it is actually going to work, then I need to start documenting shorter and more frequent posts, and try to avoid these essay like bonanzas, seeing as I already have a few other essays that I need to address for other courses. So enough about blog posts strategy, lets move on with some dirt.

So, I've started to hunt down the literature that I am going to need for this. A lot of it is conveniently located at the Phoenix public library, so that is a win, but most of those titles I can't take out of the library, so my plan of referencing a lot of that work while in the yard isn't going to happen, unless I can get real friendly with the library...in a strictly academic sense of course. But I can't really move forward with this project until I get the sources to reference from. It is going to take some time to lock down these sources, and the planting season has arrived too. So I have some sources identified at the library and the impulse buy the other day of the latest Phoenix Home & Garden Magazine edition: The Garden Issue. I flipped though it and they have some solid tips about what/how to plant, and also some really fancy pictures of high end fancy gardens over in Scottsdale. Maybe one day I'll get to that point.

But one thing I want to look at is something I can't prevent, but also really like. I have a big tree in my yard, and I recently learned from my landlord that it is a Evergreen Elm. Now, the name is a bit misleading as this tree did just shed all of its leaves this past December/January. But here it is in March and all the leaves are back in full strength. It is a beautiful tree with willow-like weeping branches that are also high enough to walk under. It is thee trademark to my yard, and it happens to blanket my garden in spotted shade.

I am not sure yet if this is going to be a benefit or a liability with the plants as the garden rows are directly beneath the tree, but if I were to hypothesize: I would think that the plants would do better with the shade as the spring/summer heat increases, giving some opportunity for sunlight to hit (to allow photosynthesis to happen) while providing consistent breaks from the hot sun. It isn't really rocket science (plants needing light and all), but the right species for the light allocation that I have is a bit of science. Speaking of which, if you are on facebook and enjoy science, you should probably like this.

The last note I want to make is the neighbors choice of an awning. Being that I live right in the middle of an urban neighborhood, my west wall is my neighbors east wall, so we are very close. Besides all the random noises of animals I hear over there (man and geese..I think?), whatever they decide to put up on their property is something I have to live with, and so is the case with anyone who would want to start gardening in a dense neighborhood. Anyway, if you see in the picture,

it marks a very early onslaught of solid shade onto the garden in the afternoon. I am not for sure in this, but I have a suspicion that it is the reason why nothing grew on my two west rows the initial time I tried to plant. It is a control that will play a big part in how this all goes, but maybe my choice of plants for those rows before (green peppers, zucchini, tomato) just wasn't the right choice anyway.